Whose Line is it anyway - #2

Our "young man" continues to amaze as with his cute one-liners..Here is some more --

1. My wife always has this nagging feeling that our son will take either the GRE or the IIT entrance exam when he gets to his kindergarten age. True to her feelings, she was furiously trying to make our lad spell out simple words like CAT, DOG etc. She wrote CAT on a piece of paper and read it as "C-A-T" and said "CAT". Our fellow said "CAT" too. Now she asked, "How do you spell CAT ?". Eagerly expecting a "C-A-T" from him, she was astounded when he came out with a cute "meow". Apparently the concept of "spelling" itself was yet to sink in.

2. As I mentioned earlier, as our young man grows up, there is a constant battle of wits going on between him and the adults - constantly trying to out wit each other. One late night our man was put in his bed, lights switched off (so that he wont jump off bed and run out) and was asked to sleep. Somehow he was not in a mood to lie down and at the same time afraid of the dark to get out of bed as well. He desperately wanted to get his grand parents in so that he can figure a way out. He yelled from him bed "Good night, thaatha(grandpa)". When his grandpa from the other side of the room's door yelled back "Good night", our fellow, realizing that he is not going to come in, replied back "I am not able to hear you say "Good night", so come inside and tell me". There are lot of things going on in that little beautiful mind of his. As I remark sometimes, a young velociraptor in the making - constant learning and trying to break and outwit boundaries and rules..

This post's pic was taken at Sea Port Village of San Diego where this amazing guy was creating all cartoon characters with balloons. My son wanted a Nemo and there it is..

Whose line is it anyway ?

Having a toddler at home is a constant battle of wits. Straight forward question and disarming and almost-always-cute comments that can catch the parent off-guard. Here are some from our young man.

1. Once he was given a plant at his preschool to keep at home and watch it grow. The next day when we asked him to water it, he asked why. He was told that it helps the plant grow. Following is his comment while taking bath the next day -
"என் மேல தண்ணி ஊத்து. அப்ப தான் நான் வளருவேன்" (Pour water on me. Only the I will grow).

2. His DVD collection includes one on "Lord Ganesh" where the lord is portrayed small, dynamic,colorful and cute . On our subsequent temple visit, our young man literally refused to believe that the idol there is of Lord Ganesh whom he knew from his DVD. Well the idol was big, stationary and not doing any stunts.:-)

3. Finally he was convinced a few days later that both Lord Ganesh's are same. This time around it was his hindu star birthday and hence the pooja at the temple in him name for Lord Ganesh. My wife asked what he saw. The prompt answer came -
"அந்த மாமா கணபதி மேல Flower தூக்கி போட்டா " (The priest uncle was throwing flowers at Ganesh).

4. When his grandpa came back home after getting a haircut, following was his comment after remembering the complete headshave had in Tirupathi -
" ஏன் தாத்தா இங்க haircut பண்ண. திருப்பதில போய் பண்ணலாம் இல்ல " (Why did you get get your hair cut here, you could have gone to tirupathi right ?")

5. One of his biscuits fell on the couch. One of us offered to eat it so that he doesnt have to do it. some how he thought there was a hair strand that was stuck to that biscuit when it fell on the couch. His comment -
"தலை முடியை ஏன் வாயில போடுண்ட. தலையில தான போட்டுக்கணும்" (Why did you put that hair strand in your mouth? shouldnt you put it in your head ?") Of course, it took a while to convince him there was no hair anywhere.

Pic shows our young man in his tricycle. One way of capturing the feel of motion in the photo is to pan the camera in the same speed as the subject, there by keeping it in focus but the blurred background implies motion sense.

Darkside of the Moon

Taken at 200mm small aperture for about 1/100th of second reveals the craters of the moon to some extent. Couldnt resist the title for the post which is actually a rock album title from Pink Floyd.

Neighbourhood Night Shot

Taken with at 55mm aperture wide open for 8 seconds.

In the foot steps of their father ..

The title adage used to have good feeling to it until recently in India. With the recent elections unleashing a flush of offsprings following their father's path, I wonder how many of them are deserving to get a head start in their political life just because of the initials or last names, as the case may be. It should also be mention that such a question of qualification can often be applied to their popular parent as well.

History has very very few instances where an offspring equalled, if not excelled, his/her accomplished parent. Few names come to mind Alexander the Great, Rajendra Chola (son of Raja Raja Chola) but in theses cases, both generations we illustrious.
Back to India, see the following slide show from Rediff on the young blood infused into parliament this election time. In the name of Father and Grandfather
I do consider the following off spring either outright useless and/or ill-qualified to get a headstart just because their so called "lineage" - Here are my rankings

10. Rahul Gandhi / Sonia&Rajiv - all over India.
9. Agatha Sangma / Purno Sangma from Meghalaya.
8. Scindia Jr. , again with zero experience, from MP
7. Sachin Pilot in footsteps of Rajesh Pilot, with zero experience.
6. Omar Abdullah / Farooq Abdullah of J&K.
5. Supriya/ Sharad Pawar of Maharashtra.
4. Muraleedharan / Karunakaran of Kerala
3. HD Kumaraswamy / DeveGowda - Karnataka.
2. Akilesh Yadav, son of Mulayam Singh Yadav - heard he was a roudy.
1. Leading from the top and beating others hands down is the Karunanidhi clan from my homestate of Tamil Nadu -- his sons Stalin, Azhagiri (both rowdies), daughter kanimozhi, nephew Dayanidhi Maran. Barring Stalin, all the others have not even worked for the party for a decent time when they overshot other party functionaries to ministerial berths.

Of course, the life time achievement award in this category should go to "so called Gandhi" family who have been capitalizing the Gandhi name better than Mahatma's real descendants themselves. While the others in the list have been able to maintain the nepotistic tint only for 2 generations, the "Gandhi" clan is in its successful 5th Generation and still counting (money too in recent years) - Motilal, Jawaharlal, Indira, Rajiv&Sonia, Rahul....

Oh my God, let my country awake.

Dubiously enough, me and my son had to pose for this post. Sepia tone supposedly gives a bit of backdated historic touch to a normal photo.

Horror

During my grad school days, I got a liking for the "X-Files" series and used to get DVDs from local library and watch it around night. Invariably, the haunting music and theme will interfere with my sleep that day but couldnt resist the thrill of the series and finally ended up watching all the volumes my local library had.

After a long time I got a chance to watch another similar creation. This one is a movie in Tamil - titled "yaavarum nalam" - (adapted from a Hindi movie by name "13B"). I felt the same thrill if not more, than what I used to get watching X-Files. Would definitely recommend it if you are have a taste for the paranormal. In addition to the story/screenplay, what stood out and made the film worthwhile was the audio and video. The audio was amazing, using bass to convey much of the horror and to top it all was the video from India's ace cinematographer P C Sreeram. What caught my attention on the videography was unlike regular horror movies, he dint use unable-to-see dim lighting - lighting was perfect plus he used unusual angles of the camera (his forte) to bring out the thrill of the moment. More so, thankfully, again unlike vanilla horror movies, he dint have the camera handheld for most of the time, constantly giving the manual shake to the viewer and creating headache for viewers like me. Different experience after a long time..

Attached pix of a cactus plant taken at Torrey Pines State Reserve, La Jolla, CA.

Making a difference

A family friend of ours informed us about a non-profit social service organization in our state Tamil Nadu in India. Its founded by a friend of his, by name Senthil, who left a lucrative IT job he was enjoying in the US to start this organization back home to make a difference in people's lives. The movement is called "Payir" - a term used to refer agricultural crop. Kindly see his work here at Payir. The individual is driven by Gandhian values of self-reliance of communities and value of truth. Needless to say, in today's world, that path is not going to be rosy. The least a person can do by sitting here in the US would be to donate money and not claim it in his tax deduction. Lets try to do that first and, a second step, take more responsiblity and contribute to movement by spreading word around, lending some time and material to it.

Today's picture is actually a street light captured during an overcast day. I was able to get the extreme ends of dynamic range without clipping.